Republican Charles Djou emerged victorious tonight in the special election to fill Hawaii’s vacancy in Congress, giving Hawaii its first GOP member of Congress in 20 years.

Djou won the special mail-in election with 39.7 percent of the vote in the final printout, released at 9 p.m.

The final printout represented 171,417 ballots returned by voters in the district, which stretches from Waikiki and downtown to Mililani.

Democrat Colleen Hanabusa was second at 31 percent, with Democrat Ed Case third at 27.8 percent.

“This is a momentous day,” Djou told a jubilant crowd at state party headquarters. “We have sent a message to the United States Congress. We have sent a message to the ex-governors. We have sent a message to the national Democrats! We have sent a message to the machine.

“We have told them that we will not stand idly by as our great nation is overburdened by too much taxes, too much debt and too much wasteful spending.”

Djou is Hawaii’s first GOP member of Congress since Pat Saiki, who represented the party from 1987 to 1991.

“I congratulate Charles Djou for his victory and a successful campaign based on the widely-shared values of cutting spending, shrinking government and creating real, permanent American jobs,” said National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (Texas).

Since almost every one of the Democrats Obama previously endorsed — Corzine, Deeds, Coakley, etc. (though based on Scott Brown’s performance so far I don’t consider Coakley’s loss to be a Republican win) — went down in flames, this time Obama didn’t endorse either of the two main Democrat contenders, so this loss can’t be directly pinned on the “Obama Curse.”

Obama carried the district 70% to 28% in 2008. Conventional wisdom holds that Djou will lose this seat in the fall when there won’t be two Democratic candidates splitting the Democratic vote. But I wouldn’t be so sure that Djou can’t boost his share of the vote from 39.5% in a three-way race to 50.1% in a head-to-head match up. It’s not clear that Hawaii Dems will easily unify behind one candidate (the primary is September 18). And Djou will have six months as an incumbent to get to know voters better. He’s certainly an appealing candidate